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This article introduces the reader to the concept of collective bargaining for campus information technology by considering the 2011 announcement of a partnership between desktop computer giant Hewlett Packard (HP) and higher education consortium Internet2. Collective bargaining is not viewed as the norm for higher education where individual colleges prefer to act as individuals, each perceiving themselves as completely unique even among peer institutions, but it has taken root in recent years due to a need to regain control over campus IT services in the wake of a surge in consumer technology use among faculty, staff and students. The cost benefit of collective bargaining is aimed at campus IT consumers but clearly there is a significant benefit for the IT providers as well, in this case, for HP. At the time this article was written, many colleges and universities were struggling to rebalance campus budgets, including reigning in IT costs. Meanwhile, consumer electronics were booming as smartphone sales surpassed standard cell phone sales and laptops outpaced desktop sales, and the war in tablet computing raged between Apple iPads, Amazon's Kindle Fire, and Google's Nexus 7. Students, faculty and staff were walking onto campus with multiple web enabled devices, draining campus Internet services and changing the way campus hardware was used. With more mobile services being used and aging desktop clusters needing to be managed, campus IT had to start thinking about strategies to control its investments. Cloud technologies were gaining in popularity at the time, and this article outlines the ways in which campuses began moving to the cloud to cut costs and to meet evolving user needs. The partnerships described in the article between companies like HP and cloud hosting service Box and Internet2 schools show that there are benefits to the members, but the author also recognizes that faculty, students and staff will likely continue to utilize their own devices and

This case study breaks down IT costs into simple easy to read tables, and the author provides insight and background on the IT budget restructuring project he undertook at his university between 2007-2008. This case is important because it is centered during a financially difficult time in higher education, when IT costs were steadily increasing due to higher demand from all campus users and budget cuts were imminent due to the global financial crisis at the time. Perhaps not a definitive case study, it is worth a read to develop more familiarity with IT portfolio management.

In the 2014 top-ten list, EDUCAUSE panelists and members identified learning outcomes, IT leadership and staffing models, instruction technologies, IT funding, providing access, and risk management as the primary challenges in higher ed IT. These issues differ greatly from the topics identified by Gartner, Inc in their annual IT issues report for CIOs however because this list was created by EDUCAUSE members - all of whom are higher ed IT professionals - the list provides a context for understanding campus IT responses to trends identified by Gartner.

Marla Clark, an editor at EdTech magazine, covers the four most effective, and highest in priority, IT investments in the United States in 2012. Clark uses data from a variety of IT surveys, collecting information from more than 550 college and university IT administrators. The intended audience is anyone interested in technologies influencing higher education. The first technology described is the mobile application. More than 60% of the campuses participating in the survey embrace mobility within their IT structure. Public universities lead with more than 77% offering mobile apps in connection with the institution, with private schools at 67%. The second efficient technology is cloud adoption. While many colleges and universities have been slow to transition to cloud technologies, those that have, are utilizing the options more fully. Now institutions are moving calendars and learning management systems to the cloud, instead of just storage and archival materials. Integration of IT into classroom/course instruction is the third item on top of colleges and universities' priority list. 74% of the institutions participating in the survey indicated curriculum integration is a top priority for the next few years. Finally, almost exactly half of the colleges and universities surveyed believe massive open online courses are a viable course delivery module. Of the 50% that look favorably on massive open online classes, more than 60% are unsure of how to earn revenue using the technology.

This case study details the definition of an IT problem (too many projects backlogged) and the realization of a larger systemic problem (adopted technology not meeting needs of users) which led to a deep analysis of campus systems, stakeholders, and IT governance. The case is an example of a user community hungry for technology and hopeful that technology will solve their problems and an IT organization willing to support more technology use. The solution was IT governance, a process to more carefully evaluate user needs and proposed solutions and balance that with existing infrastructure and long term strategic planning. Value here is in the title: not often does higher education admit to failure and this is part of my thesis - that failure must be part of the culture in order to manage emerging technology effectively. CIOs and other campus leaders must be willing to acknowledge that something isn't working, admit failure or defeat, and move on. This must be done quickly - in an agile environment. The value here is that this case study illustrates my theory.

Malcolm Read talks about the benefits of collaboration not just on higher education community, but on information and communications technology (ICT) community as well. He also highlights the role of the virtual environment in enhancing collaborative research, and the impact of cloud technology on research, teaching and learning, and higher education management. ICT infrastructure has benefitted from the growth of collaboration research, facilitated by the World Wide Web. The usage of the virtual environment for virtual research has not been without its challenges, one being that the technology tools and applications usually require specialist support, and has high overhead costs, which are usually borne by the researchers themselves. Read argues that it is time for a new profession of research technologists to emerge with the skills to support collaborative research, identify generic approaches within the field of research, provide the required training, and provide maintenance of related infrastructures. Another alternative would be to heighten the professionalization of personnel who service the e-learning environment. On cloud computing, Read believes that the wealth of information available through the cloud is a valuable resource to administrative computing in the sense that it offers a cheaper data storage option. Of course one of the most obvious benefits of the cloud, is that it offers access to web 2.0 operations such as blogs, wikki and of course emails. The way each institution uses cloud technology however, will differ according to their individual needs, a point that should be taken into consideration if an organization should opt to design processes in collaboration with other institutions. Read sees virtualization as a solution to the problem because it can be used on any single computer, to run different applications, making it shareable between institutions. One concern here however is that of data security and duration of service. The crux of th

A comprehensive report on information technology governance in higher education, this report begins with the history of higher ed IT, review then current trends and issues, and carries forward to recommendations for leadership, including boards of trustees, for managing IT going forward in the 21st century. While slightly dated (>10 years), it is a complete work that covers topics relating to IT governance and emerging technology. The publication date (2003) is a milestone for issues in higher education: before the global financial crisis which significantly impacted campus funding from 2008-2012; before Nokia introduced mass market smartphones in 2006, and before the release of the Apple iPad in 2010, which was a pivotal point in educational technology adoption. The perspective of the authors in this report are significant because of the time period from which they speak to us now, a decade later. That decade has been rich with innovation and change; this report makes an interesting point of reference. Were the authors on the right track? did their ideas come to fruition? What, in their report, can we still use and apply today in IT governance?

Voss reflects on the last five years, since his initial debate with Bradley Wheeler in 2010 about the role of the campus CIO and concludes that the role of the CIO has changed. Not only has the role changed, he explains, but the qualities a CIO must possess have changed as well. As the CIO, in many cases, is becoming a more senior leader, there is also competition on campus as some academic and administrative departments seek to gain control of the IT they use. For example, a VIce Provost of Research Computing or a CHief Digital Officer. Voss argues that breaking off responsibilities and redistributing controls the campus IT portfolio puts the institution in danger. he argues that the campus CIO needs to be actively involved in all segments of campus IT use and needs to be the primary spokesperson reporting to the president and the board on all IT matters to ensure that investments and IT projects are aligned efficiently and effectively.

Since the year 2000, the higher education information technology (IT) organization EDUCAUSE has published a top ten list of issues identified by a selected panel of higher education IT professionals. The 2014 report is different because, for the first time, members of the organization were invited to rank the issues in a survey conducted after panelists had assembled lists themselves. Because of this change, the resulting data sets can be evaluated across institutional types, as defined by Carnegie Classifications, and compared to determine what differences exist for IT issues across the institution types. This data set is important when investigating emerging technology trends and assessing research from various entities such as the New Media Consortium's annual Horizon Report.

Fischman introduces OpenClass, a learning management system that is the product of the combined efforts of Pearson Publishing, and Google. OpenClass is free, and combines the utilities of course management with social networking, and community building. It also allows users to access materials in e-books and YouTube videos. While it is not as popular or in widespread usage like blackboard and Moodle, some colleges believe that it can be used simultaneously with other learning management systems. One of its most positive strengths is its Facebook type news stream that posts class activities and comments, as well as highlights students in a class and their comments, making it easy for students to identify peers to interact with. It also has features for collaboration and information sharing for both students and faculty. Critics from Blackboard such as Matthew Small, the chief business officer doubts that the OpenClass can be integrated into the university like the Blackboard, which connects to student information systems, and meets the requirements of college policies and regulations. Never the less, the biggest selling point of OpenClass is the fact that it is free. This article would be of interest to educators and institutions interested in learning about new learning management systems

The article serves two purposes for research on the topic of higher ed information technology: 1) the challenges associated with managing campus IT are universal; the issues are not found only in American higher education and 2) a case study for exploration of solutions for campus IT problems including cost, adoption and oversight, or management. The recency of the publication is important for context on current trends and issues as well as current management strategies. The sources is important because the authors are economics professors at universities in the UK who are working toward an openness in education agenda, an issue that is often met with resistance in the US even though it is commonly regarded as a possible solution for some IT problems. Openness in education has been widely debated in consideration of three key areas: cost, quality, and access. Open education resources (OER) includes free or low cost textbooks, lab manuals, learning objects and courseware. These options offer resources to educators and students at a lower cost than publisher materials and vendor software, however faculty and others question the quality of resources that are offered for free. The myth that "free" does not equal "good" in the eyes of academics prohibits widespread adoption of OER thus limits access to education resources for many. The case study in this paper goes much deeper, to examine the issues relating to creating an openness initiative at a major university and evaluate the strategies used to shift the campus mindset in regards to OER, change behavior for selecting campus and course resources, and open a dialog around OER, both using and creating from and for the OER community. Bonus: excellent lit review on the topic of openness in higher ed.

Since 2002, the New Media Consortium has partnered with experts in the field of educational technology, including the Educause Learning Initiative (ELI), to conduct a Delphi study and generate its annual Horizon Report on emerging trends in educational technology. The report, widely considered a respectable analysis of issues and a guide to addressing those issues, is disseminated with a Creative Commons open license for public distribution and consumption. Key themes in the NMC Horizon Report include: Infrastructure, leadership, organizational strategies, teaching and learning, curricular content, and assessment (pg. 4). The framework of the report includes sections on policy, leadership and practice (pg. 6). The report includes references for further reading on every issue presented. The references are evidence of the research conducted by the panelists involved in developing the annual report. Trends are also described as short term, mid term or long term trends, helping the reader estimate the impact of the trends on existing campus IT issues and initiatives. Some of the trends in the 2014 report support trends identified by EDUCAUSE and Gartner, while others are unique. Social media is an issue in the NMC report, but not the others, while assessment strategies using student data and technology are common among all three. The Horizon Report is unique in its daring presentation of topics that challenge conventional thought about higher education. The report predicts a significant threat to higher ed coming from online learning and emerging models of formal education. The report also highlights the power and impact of data - from learning analytics to predictive instructional models - that seem to transfer authority from professors to technology and technologists. There is a lot to consume in the Horizon Report. Analysis can be augmented with blogs and conference proceedings which review the report in part or in whole. Reading the report and supporting re

The authors of this article, all leaders in higher ed IT, argue that a CIO is the center of campus information technology (IT) and therefore a "change agent" that has an opportunity to contribute and have an impact in all areas of campus business. The article has several different topic sections that include quotes and commentary by the authors about being a CIO and working with the CIO. Topics include: leadership qualities of the CIO; operating a service department within the organization; initiating change on campus (ie technology project management); and contributing to the academic mission of the university through partnerships and collaborations with other executives. The web version of the article includes embedded video of the authors describing topics in greater detail. While interesting, the primary value in this article are the topics which are good fodder for one-to-one conversation and inquiry with CIOs. It would be interesting to use the article as a reference and use the topics as the foundation for interview questions. When interviewing more experienced CIO's it would be interesting to find out what has changed over time. Younger CIO perspective may be similar to the author's.

The author of this article is a writer for University Business, an online higher education publication. The article summarizes how lectures can not only be recorded digitally but also streamed live over the internet, with minimal effort by participants. Lecture capture systems (LCS) give the ability to slice and dice archived recordings into more manageable and meaningful segments. The author shares how as some lecture capture solutions have changed to software or web-based platforms, the definition is being stretched to include content faculty are producing at home, or even recordings of hybrid class sessions capturing both the in-class and online activity. Users see a partitioned screen displaying the presentation material and video feed, along with navigation options. Although video of the professor is thought to enhance distance learning sessions, it is usually skipped when the result is not interactive. In some situations, a video is used to display a demonstration, as often happens in medical classes. The author stresses that the audio is extremely important and if it is not great quality, it reduces the usefulness. Editing can be done to add title slides, remove dead time, or eliminate lessons that might have made sense during class but could be considered meaningless afterward. Long lectures can also be broken into shorter segments for students to use as study guides. Overall, the author suggests that faculty should keep the student as a user in mind when developing content. A helpful checklist is provided for administrators who are considering how to implement lecture capture: What is the institution's goal for having a lecture capture system? What needs are evident through observation of faculty? How involved will the IT staff have to be in training and using the system? Can faculty members operate it themselves? Will the system integrate with a course management system? Is the system scalable? How scalable does it need to be? Or is portability better? Wha

This article serves two purposes in research about emerging technology and higher education: 1) it provides insight on the business side of the issues and trends, highlighting the energy and enthusiasm of vendors and developers eager to deliver what they think higher education needs and 2) a different perspective on Clay Christensen, a notable figure in technology and higher ed who is perceived as both a hero and villain by different groups in both sectors. There are several articles about the spring 2014 "disruption" events, along with dozens of blog posts. This one is selected because it provides enough context and information to associate Christensen with other literature and it introduces the vendors and developers to the topic. The author's tone is moderately critical of the events and the people involved, a nice comparison for articles penned by Christensen and other evangelists themselves.

This is one of many articles about institutional reformation from change evangelist and education futurist Clay Christensen. What is unique about this one is that it is an extract from a larger work and republished for the higher ed community via EDUCAUSE. Christensen argues in this paper about the avalanche of change triggered by technology, the need to embrace technology, and suggests that higher education is threatened by technology. His rhetoric often revolves around those topics so many of his paper provide a context in which to understand the significance of higher ed IT issues: people are hesitant to change; academia is notoriously slow to adapt in great part due to its deeply rooted history and highly valued traditions; and campus leadership feels threatened by what is happening, either because they are truly worried about the effects of technology or because people like Christensen keep telling them they should be worried.

Edited by then president of EDUCAUSE, this book is a collection of case studies and reflections on practice from the field of higher education information technology management. Oblinger's objective was to provide evidence of impact in regards to adoption and successful implementation of campus technologies. The format allows campus leadership and IT professionals to examine the challenges and issues associated with higher ed IT through the lens of their peers at other institutions. The variety of cases shows similarities and differences among institutional types. Valuable as a snapshot of what was happening at the time of its publication for perspective and context as well as to question whether strategies are effective, or not, over time.

Garnet, Inc. is an internationally recognized leader in information technology and high tech industries. Their team of researchers and consultants are widely known and accepted for their thought leadership and advice in the private business sector and in higher education. Often, insight from Gartner is considered when making strategic plans for an organization where IT plays an essential role. An annual report on IT issues provides a hit list of topics for CIOs to consider. The Gartner report can be used alongside industry reports from EDUCAUSE and the New Media Consortium to help decision makers understand emerging technology. In this 2014 report, Gartner analysts report on Mobile technology inclusive of both devices and applications (apps); cloud technology, including software as a service (SaaS) models and vendors; and intelligent machines and "the Internet of things", a reference not only to the ubiquitous Internet but also a growing realm of "smart" devices and appliances connected to people via the web.

Educause trends of top ten IT issues